Author notes

BURNING GAZE, Page 2

alschroeder

on May 19, 2013

Part of the fun of this series is exploring the abilities of the various Next Level members. Focusing (no pun intended) on Vigilant. 

A couple of things bothered me about Superman's vision abilities. He could see radio waves—but radio waves are much, much too long to be captured by something as small as Superman's eyeball–not to SEE things with it. That's why radio telescopes are so large.

Similarly, for a human eyeball, you have to take radio waves and make them more energetic, upping their frequency, for us to see them. Where is the energy coming from?

So I realized these eye-fields might look great visually—and by robbing the shorter wavelengths of their energy, making them visible and sparkly, and yet explain how Vigilant could see radio waves….I realized it'd work. They'd steal the energy from the shorter wavelenghs, making them visible, to make the longer, but also invisible wavelengths visible, by transferring the energy it robbed into the longer, weaker wavelengths.

(It works in reverse for x-rays and ultra-violet rays, but that would make the eyefields SMALLER than the human eye, and harder to see. Flickerflame might have noticed a small red flash when Vigilant was x-raying or looking at him in ultra-violet last time, no more. During the infra-red gaze, there might have been a blue haze around Vigilant's eyes, as ultraviolet was made visible in Vigilant's eyefields….shorter wavelengths to steal energy from, to make visible the infra-red "light".)

When the eyefields get really large, they form a small screen in front of Vigilant, with the waves converted to something visible.

I also wanted to touch on the sense of wonder. There's so much we can't see…the galaxy's core in the sky, or the patterns on flowers, only visible in the ultra-violet range…which bees can see, which guide them in, but to us are invisible.

Next time we'll delve into Vigilant's hearing, and get back to Flickerflame.